| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: of a long and living literary tradition; and hence, so far,
its explanation. When many lines diverge from each other in
direction so slightly as to confuse the eye, we know that we
have only to produce them to make the chaos plain: this is
continually so in literary history; and we shall best
understand the importance of Victor Hugo's romances if we
think of them as some such prolongation of one of the main
lines of literary tendency.
When we compare the novels of Walter Scott with those of the
man of genius who preceded him, and whom he delighted to
honour as a master in the art - I mean Henry Fielding - we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: If I met a working man and his wife in the streets between eleven
o'clock and midnight on their way home from the Ambigu Comique, I used
to amuse myself by following them from the Boulevard du Pont aux Choux
to the Boulevard Beaumarchais. The good folk would begin by talking
about the play; then from one thing to another they would come to
their own affairs, and the mother would walk on and on, heedless of
complaints or question from the little one that dragged at her hand,
while she and her husband reckoned up the wages to be paid on the
morrow, and spent the money in a score of different ways. Then came
domestic details, lamentations over the excessive dearness of
potatoes, or the length of the winter and the high price of block
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: But now no more, for here the Dukes are come.
[Enter Suffolk, Norfolk, and the Earl of Bedford.]
SUFFOLK.
Goodden to my Lord Bishop.
NORFOLK.
How fares my Lord? what, are you all alone?
GARDINER.
No, not alone, my Lords; my mind is troubled;
I know your honours muse wherefore I sent,
And in such haste. What, came you from the King?
NORFOLK.
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